


perhaps is not a No (it's not a Yes either)

by revoleotion



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: Thrawn Series - Timothy Zahn (2017)
Genre: (assumed) character death, Angst, M/M, Star Wars Rebels Spoilers, sympathetic Ronan, thrawn spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:00:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25105096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/revoleotion/pseuds/revoleotion
Summary: Death is a very real threat that a good strategist accepts as a variable, yet refuses to think about at every waking hour. I’m beginning to think that perhaps the moments where we don’t expect it to happen is when death hurts us the most.We don’t promise to stay alive in war times.Yet I can’t help but wonder if I miscalculated. Or rather, when I miscalculated.If I have to set a fixed date, I’d like to point out the day I died.
Relationships: Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo/Eli Vanto
Comments: 7
Kudos: 18





	perhaps is not a No (it's not a Yes either)

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't watched Rebels yet, so if anything about this doesn't make sense, just ignore it and appreciate the angst. I tagged this as spoilers but here's another warning: This will have spoilers for pretty much every canon Thrawn media! I mean it.  
> I bought the legends books last week and I am kind of scared to read them. Like Aneleise said, legends Thrawn walked so canon Thrawn could run. Also, no Eli, -10/10.  
> Anyway! Have fun with this!  
> \- ben

_Death is a very real threat that a good strategist accepts as a variable, yet refuses to think about at every waking hour. I’m beginning to think that perhaps the moments where we don’t expect it to happen is when death hurts us the most._

_We don’t promise to stay alive in war times._

_Yet I can’t help but wonder if I miscalculated. Or rather, when I miscalculated._

_If I have to set a fixed date, I’d like to point out the day I died._

* * *

“They have lost contact to the Chimera. She's lost in Wild Space. The last thing they received was a deadly attack by a creature inside--”

Eli’s brain refused listening after this, not a conscious choice, something his body did without him asking for it. He pushed his hands into the pockets of his uniform because he couldn’t stop the trembling to save his life. It was impossible to lift his head to look anyone into the eye, but he had to. He had to look at Admiral Ar’alani to find his own pain in her eyes, or perhaps he needed to look over to Ronan, Thrawn’s enemy, then yet another human outcast. 

Admiral Ar’alani first. Eli looked up, blinked a few times and finally met her eyes. 

“I am sorry,” she said. 

The world burned before Eli’s eyes. This was it, the universe had decided to collapse, his entire body was being dragged down, too heavy to speak, to think. 

“No!”

It was loud, louder than Eli had heard him speak before. He turned his head to Ronan, a pale, shaking mess in the entrance of the bridge. Eli had the feeling that if he had been holding something, he would’ve dropped it. It felt almost forbidden to watch someone losing it like that, especially because Eli managed to keep himself together. 

But this was what broke Ronan. 

“I understand that this is a loss,” the Admiral continued, and something told Eli that she was no longer speaking for the Chiss. She was speaking for Ronan, perhaps for Eli too. It was easy to blame this on Chiss not feeling anything. But they did feel, intensely. Eli didn’t pretend to know what pain she had been facing, and just because she seemed unbothered by this, didn’t mean that she actually was. 

Ronan did not know that. He was filled up to the brim with pain, it was spilling over and bleeding all over his face. Eli finally looked away. 

The other human remained in the doorstep for a few more seconds, then he made a sound, a word in basic that Eli wouldn’t translate if his life depended on it. Then, he left. Stormed away. Ran like this was all about him, like Eli was not falling apart, like every single star had not been taken out of the sky. 

“Look after him. I don’t want him to destroy any equipment,” Ar’alani said. “Take two days off.”

“It’s fine,” Eli heard himself say. 

“That was an order.”

He nodded. When he tried to follow Ronan out of the room, he noticed that his legs were shaking, almost too much to work. During the entire walk to his quarter (their quarter, he reminded himself because that had to happen), Eli prayed that he didn’t stumble. Once he finally reached it, he braced himself, knocked and entered. 

Ronan was sitting on the bed. Every item in their room was intact, Ronan obviously hadn’t moved after sitting down. He had his legs pulled up to his chest and pressed his face into his knees like he was trying to gouge his eyes out. 

“This is dramatic,” Eli said. It hurt him to say it, it felt like he had to make sure Ronan pulled himself together, so he could do it too. If Ronan stopped crying, maybe Eli could be fine. 

“Dramatic?” Ronan choked out without lifting his head. “That was the smartest man in the universe. I outlived him.”

“Does it make you proud?” Eli snapped. 

The man’s body tensed. He slowly looked up, exhaled and stared at Eli like he wished to kill him with his bare hands. 

“You are not the only man who loved him,” he said, nothing but a broken whisper. 

Eli wasn’t sure what to feel. He had seen Ronan as a fairly xenophobic man who failed to see Thrawn’s genius. Perhaps he saw it and understood that it was not his place to _understand_ that genius. 

“Great. He’s gone. If you haven’t caught the news but he sent us both away. Unless that’s some kind of new flirting tactic, this means he abandoned us.”

“Because--”

“No,” Eli interrupted him. “Not because. There is no because. We’re miles away from him, he’s lost and he’s _gone_. Get. Over. It.”

And then the tears came. Before he knew it, he was sobbing. He sunk down on his bed and cried until a cold, shaky hand touched his shoulder. Eli didn’t want to be that weak that he had to be comforted by the man that called him a traitor but he craved the touch. When his torso slumped forward, Ronan pushed him back up and held both of his shoulders between his fingers. The man cleared his throat but didn’t seem to find anything to say. Eli cried like it was the first time in years (it was, he guessed). 

He had tried to hate Thrawn so badly, yet he couldn’t. Nothing had prepared him for the moment he had to live without him. Thrawn had always been a genius, a star on the night sky, someone to look up to. Eli had fantasized about marrying him one day, despite everything, to show that they deserved a little normality. 

“They didn’t say he’s dead,” Ronan whispered after something that felt like an eternity. “You met him on accident once, chances are--”

“You are bad at math,” Eli muttered with a hoarse voice. 

“I am,” Ronan agreed. 

Then he smiled. Eli knew how much energy it had to cost him to do something like that for anyone, not to mention Eli Vanto. 

“If this is of any help, you are important to him.”

Eli looked past him, took a deep breath and closed his eyes. 

“It is, I think.”


End file.
